Instead I told myself: " You have two Elite Interceptor, that can easily out maneuver the X-Wing.. You are going to win this!"

Love this. That is the exact attitude you need to have, especially with such a high adrenaline rush squad (the actual physiologic response, not the upgrade card). I'll have to try that with Rhymer though. That looks like a very good way to draw some attention away from the squint jocks and still lay down a heavy beating.

"No Shields. All Guts!"

Try it without the upgrades and just the pilot synergy to start. The droids will add weird abilities and the list will function a little better without them.

Garven

Tarn

Dutch with ion

Gold with ion

You also have the option of dropping down Tarn and taking a rookie x-wing and then putting 2 R2 droids on the x-wings.

OR

Garven

Dutch with ion

Blue Squad with ion cannon

rookie x-wing

This second list gives you a different tactical play than the first. You can ion at range 3 (with the B-wing) but you have more punch over 2 Y's with the B giving you 3 ships with 3 attack dice. You lose one turret but gain more firepower.

Give them both a spin and see how it goes.

I like where you are going with adding the B. Although i am not a huge fan of the Ion if i can fire my regualr cannon. Plus I like the idea of R4 preventing a huge shot to kill a ship outright. It. Has a passive ability to stop 3 hits for one point!

This game can be easy, or it can be hard.

If you are having trouble with 'hard' lists, then you should take an easy one and practice more. Easy lists include duplicate ships (like multiple tie fighters our two Y-wings with 2B-wings). Flying ships with the same pilot skill. Combining these means that you can keep a consistent strategy as your shops get destroyed and that you can adjust which ship moves first to avoid losing critical actions.

If you think that 'easy' lists are beneath you (as many do for whatever reason, then just keep using hard lists and losing. I played about 10 games using Tie Interceptors before I figured our how to boost and barrel roll in a way that was actually effective. Now, my Interceptor list shreds B-wings by getting and staying begging them. This is the benefit of hard lists - when you figure them out, they can usually beat most if the easy lists. This is because they trend to be more flexible potter to include pilot skills that can be leveraged against your opponent.

The short version is that loading is key to getting better. If you don't want to lose,.then play leads complicated lists.

Instead I told myself: " You have two Elite Interceptor, that can easily out maneuver the X-Wing.. You are going to win this!"

Love this. That is the exact attitude you need to have, especially with such a high adrenaline rush squad (the actual physiologic response, not the upgrade card). I'll have to try that with Rhymer though. That looks like a very good way to draw some attention away from the squint jocks and still lay down a heavy beating.

"No Shields. All Guts!"

I have become quite good with this build, the only reason why I am prolly not going to bring it in a tournament it is because of the 46 pts on Rhymer. It is too much of a huge chunk that you loose one shot, if your are bad lucked like in my last game.

Then again the high reward can give you a huge pay off. You could realistically deal on the 2nd turn. 9 to 11 damage on a Falcon and kill it on the 3rd turn, before it can fire back (thanks to Fel and Phennir) if it is Chewie or Lando. This build is brutal and I have yet to loose with it in casual play! You should give it a try! ;-)

I'm not starting this thread to bash x-wing. This is a good game. I've just been frustrated I guess the same with myself regarding it. I've been playing off and on for a year and I just can't make it work. I don't expect to be some sort of store champion a regional champion, but I at least like to get close to or just above a .500 winning percentage. in contrast I play Star Trek attack wing, & I have won of several events there including winning the Deep Space nine. yes I know there are differences between the two games, I just find it hard to believe that I can be so well in one in so horrible in the other.

I know my piloting needs work. And for some reason my dice rolls are horrible. But I also seem to just not get the list building done correctly. Is this game a game where the named pilots its just are not worth it? for instance I want to use Wes Jansen, but I have a feeling he's just too expensive. I know which is a must-have as is howlrunner, but is that it?

I feel my desire to use these named pilots in there cool abilities is really hamstring my list building. I feel like most the name pilots I should not even be using. To be honest I'm wondering what ships are useful for what anymore. I just can't make a list that seems to do decently.

I'm considering just stop buying anymore miniatures for this game and just occasionally play for fun.I don't want to go down that route since I've bought at least one of every ship.so I'm asking help from the community to help talk me off the ledge. I guess I need help figuring out two things.

-other than the stand bys like wedge and Howlrunner, are named pilots worth it?

-what roles do all the ships in X Wing have? should I have only one of certain ships, and or should I feel the multiples?

I am sorry if this is sounding whiny. But I have been trying to figure this out on my own and I can't do it . I guess I'm trying to figure out if this is something I can fix for me or if its a lost cause.

One piece of advice I would give is to not look at the list building as min-maxing. Don't be concerned with trying to build the "right" list. X-Wing is more focused on flying your list well.

Now sure, you could build a bad list but for the most part, things are well balanced. You can run your named pilots just fine. You just need to know how to fly them.

I don't know how you play but I find most people who blame the dice (which you haven't done, I realize) just aren't flying well. They just throw their ships at the other guy and roll dice. The problem is exacerbated when you lead the charge with your precious high-point ships.

X-Wing is a very tactical game. Much more so than it seems on the surface. You want to build your list to the style that you want to play. You then want to fly your ships in a way that will maximize their dice while minimizing your opponent's dice. I know that sounds obvious but a lot of people just don't do that.

Your X-Wing has 2 evade. Put a stealth device on it and you're rolling 3. Set yourself up in to range 3 and you're rolling 4. Position yourself behind an asteroid and now you're rolling 5. That's a difference between taking damage and being nearly invincible.

Just yesterday I watched a cool video on how to strafe with Lieutenant Lorrir. I'm sure that would throw a good many players for a loop.

A lot of this game is figuring out how best to set yourself up on the current round, anticipating your opponent's maneuvers & actions, all while figuring out where you want to be on the next round. A bad maneuver could mean your entire squadron falls apart.

...and that's the fun of the game. You can build a list of generics, a list of uniques, or some combination thereof. Flying them to their strengths while focusing on your opponent's list weaknesses is what the game is all about.

I just want to say that for dice blamers... most of the time you hear about green dice failing you. And that's the way it should be. Green dice are much harder to roll than red.

ROLL RED. STAY THIRSTY FRIENDS.

You know the green dice have more blanks on them, right?

Read again, that's exactly what I said:

Green dice are harder to roll than red because they have more blanks.

If you are rolling red, it means your opponent is rolling green. So, roll more reds. Or, in other words, improve your flying so you get better shots and are out of arc more.

Blail...in response to what you say...that don't quite help in this situation:

X-Wing (Me) VS Interceptor (My friend)

X-Wing attacks first at range 2.

result: (Blank, Blank, Hit)

Interceptor defense roll: (Evade, Evade, Blank)

fair enough.

Inteceptor counter attack at range 2.

result: (Crit, Crit, Crit)

X-wing defense roll: (Blank, Blank, Blank)

"Are you ****ing kidding me!" was the response I actually did say aloud. My rolls in that game were awful on both attack and defence needless to say I lost that game. So when I complain that the dice were against me that night, I don't think its unreasonable to say that given how bad the dice rolls were actually going for me.

While this is true, as you get better at the game it becomes about making sure you roll more attack dice than your opponent to the point even if the dice are bad you can win. Avoiding Arcs, Flanking, tailing Shuttles, Etc. This plays out best in Epic Play where you can alter Traffic flow and stop clusters with the threat of Ramming Spped ships.

Yeup.

First thing. Bad dice WILL happen. a good general understands this. You simply want to use your skills to maximize your winning over time, because statistics happens.

Rolling 1 hit 2 blanks is not an unlikely roll.

The enemy rolling 3 crits and you rolling 3 blanks is pretty unusual though.

However, rolling 3 blanks on green dice happens QUITE often.

The first thing you can do is practice hard to try and get the best positions. The best die roll is when you roll red, they roll green, and they don't have a shot back at you.

Another way to ensure they don't have a shot back at you is having good PS and focus firing lower PS units down before they get to fire back. Again: you roll red, they roll green, they dont attack back.

Ex. take 3 high PS shiips like Wedge, Wes, Luke. And fly them well through an asteroid field at your opponent. And target down 1 ship with ALL three of yours.

The last thing you can do to mitigate luck is go for high power builds.

Ex. :

Jendon with ST title and HLC - give target locks to everyone before even the first attack

Jonus (with a bomb for later)- reroll 2 of all missiles and HLC, meaning basically, that everyone attacks for 4 dice, 2 rerolls and Focus.

Scimitar Bomber with Concussion

Scimitar Bomber with Concussion

Each concussion missile will have: 4 dice, 2 rerolls, a Focus, 1 free blank change to hit, AND opponent does not get an extra evade dice from R3. You basically will get 4 hits every time. Times two plus the HLC. That's about 11 to 12 hits, mitigated by normal luck of green dice, but without the R3 extras. I think its about 1.5 evades per 3 green dice ish. so 11 - 4.5 = 7.5 uncancelled hits average. Enough to cleanly kill off most things.

You will get plus an evade dice at R3, your ships have 6 or 10 hull, so they likely won't die to even focus fire.

The trick then here is to know how to slow fly the ships into range 3, see the Rule of 11 thread/video.

When I played this vs my friends 3 ints and 1 tie, it totally killed it. Got to R3, first volley killed two of his ships, with none of mine dead. He was in a bind because as interceptors, he literally had no good place to be. At R1, he's suffer multiple 3 dice regular attacks and a bomb the turn after. And Ints die fast.

vs X-wings, they will have a better chance by getting to R1 because they have more hp.

I feel my desire to use these named pilots in there cool abilities is really hamstring my list building. I feel like most the name pilots I should not even be using. To be honest I'm wondering what ships are useful for what anymore. I just can't make a list that seems to do decently.

Don't be discouraged by losses. It just means you haven't found the combination that works for you. I think the named pilots can be great in the right squad, but you need to team them up with the right upgrades. If you find two pilots that can team up and work their abilities with each other, then better still.

If you don't want to try the 'swarm' style of play, then the key to this game is finding the right combinations of pilot and upgrades. It's crucial that whatever upgrade you choose is going to work with the pilot ability and improve your chances of dealing damage. Anything that gives free actions is usually helpful. Anything that can pass free tokens to another pilot is usually helpful. Anything that denies the opponent their options is always helpful. I played Dark Curse the other night for the first time without any upgrades and he was great. I was building a squad and had 16 points left, so he was a filler. Best filler I've played! My opponent kept putting a target lock on him and assigning himself focus tokens, both of which were useless. Great fun.

Go through your cards and pick a pilot. Then go through your upgrade cards and for each one ask yourself: " Is this upgrade going to make this pilot work better? Is it going to enhance his ability? Is it going to stuff up my opponent? " If the answer is " no ", then on to the next card. Think each combination through in a combat situation. " If I do this, then that will happen, which will trigger this ability... " and so on. You need to fully understand the combination you've just chosen and how it will work.

You'll soon find something that will work for you.

Bad dice, good manoeuvring, close call.

Good dice, bad manoeuvring, close call.

Good dice, good manoeuvring....hooyah!!! How'd you like them apples!!!! BOOM!!!!

Bad dice, bad manoeuvring.........not enjoyable.

The focus (yes, I did ) must be the manoeuvring, as well as damage limitation/escalation using upgrades. The dice are random, for everyone, always. It's also about mind set. You go into games looking for bad rolls and go "see" when they happen. Go in looking for the good rolls and give an almighty " 'av it" when you get them. Good for the soul and you are now highlighting your good fortune to your opponent, who will then start to focus (x2) on their poor rolls.

Boom!!!!

Hey everyone! I played the Imdaar Alpha event at the FFG center last night and out of 22 ppl I got 7th and went 3 and 2! The top 8 got ships and I brought home a brand new E wing!

Thank you to those of you who gave me feedback and advice! I pulled out of my funk and I know I can fly better now! I learned my use if too many named pilots that didn`t synch really hampered me. Now I can make a better list and I even learned how to place my asteroids!

Thanks again!

Good form that man!

Hey everyone! I played the Imdaar Alpha event at the FFG center last night and out of 22 ppl I got 7th and went 3 and 2! The top 8 got ships and I brought home a brand new E wing!

Thank you to those of you who gave me feedback and advice! I pulled out of my funk and I know I can fly better now! I learned my use if too many named pilots that didn`t synch really hampered me. Now I can make a better list and I even learned how to place my asteroids!

Thanks again!

What was the squad that you ran in the tournament?

I can empathise with the sentiments on here. I love the game, only been playing a couple of months but have not yet won a game, came third from bottom in my local regional tourney. Have tried several different Rebel lists, from 4 X's to Dual YT's, pretty much get my ass handed to me constantly. Gonna keep plugging away at it, got the pre-wave 4 tourney next weekend and haven't hot a clue what list to run, maybe B's and A's, in it for the experience but it would be nice to win a game........just one!

I can empathise with the sentiments on here. I love the game, only been playing a couple of months but have not yet won a game, came third from bottom in my local regional tourney. Have tried several different Rebel lists, from 4 X's to Dual YT's, pretty much get my ass handed to me constantly. Gonna keep plugging away at it, got the pre-wave 4 tourney next weekend and haven't hot a clue what list to run, maybe B's and A's, in it for the experience but it would be nice to win a game........just one!

Sounds like you are playing for the wrong side...

Let's reboot here and start from the beginning. Not to gloss over everyone's suggestions and ignore them, but many of your complaints in your OP mirrored my own.

I come from a competetive 40k background. This game was my game of choice after dialing back my commitment to GW and I'm SO pleased to see a nice competetive community springing up.

However...when I first started playing, I had lots of trouble. I would rarely win, my record was crap, and going to tournaments I got handled all the time.

Since I basically ruled in 40k locally....this was sort of a sticking point for me. How could I work out so well in 40k and yet be so bad at this game?

X-Wing is a truly tactical wargame...much more so than Strategic. There is a strategic element in the list building...but how your squadron is flown has much more of an impact. You GOT TO fly your fighters correctly....more correctly than your opponent. You can gimp yourself in list building, but even a flawed list can win if its flown better.

Here is how I improved.

1. Get Mad-Not at the dice, not at the opponents squadron, get mad at yourself. You need to tell yourself that you can be awesome....and beleive it.

2. Do Intel-You are obviously online. Visit forums, read tactics, go to team covenant and learn who is worth listening to and read their posts.

3. Play Proven Lists- Play what the champions play. Han Shoots First, Rebel Convoy, Paul Heavers current list is a good one. These guys are seeing success...read how they play, watch it on youtube and mimic them in games. This isnt in order for you to claim their lists as your own....THIS IS FOR YOU TO LEARN! By playing winning lists...you already know they have synergy...they work. You will learn WHY they work. To quote Star Trek...."You need to know WHY things work on a Starship." This is SO true.

This is the point I have reached. I've improved my play SO MUCH over the last few months. I've been playing rebel convoy (an undefeated regional win), I played Paul Heavers list at the first IA tourney this weekend I played in...and totally stomped face, and today, after studying up on Imperial Interceptors all weekend I finally made my own list. One with Carnor Jax, a Royal Guard, an AP and Dark Curse....and again went undefeated. However, I can see how the list I created is really flawed, but I was more proficient than my opponents.

A couple of quick tips.

Stop concentrating so much on builds. Other than using successful builds and learning from THEM....stop. It's not the build, it's your flying.

3 ship builds with no large ships....lose. (unless you're awesome with them) I would say this sort of play is for really proficient players only.

Learn to block. (Convoy is GREAT for this)

Learn what ships can joust and which cannot. B wings are fabulous Jousters. Interceptors are not.

Watch Top Gun....pay attention to the classroom. Seriously....watch Top Gun.

-You never EVER leave your wingman (keep your fighters together...don't spread out)

-Better to bug out, save the aircraft, than push a bad position (this is a big one)

-"I'm engaged with five! I repeat five! I'm in Deep Sh!t!" (In XWing if 4 ships are firing at your single....it's dead.)

Relax, it's a game. But in your mind...get mad. Learn WHY you are losing.

You can do it man.

Hey everyone! I played the Imdaar Alpha event at the FFG center last night and out of 22 ppl I got 7th and went 3 and 2! The top 8 got ships and I brought home a brand new E wing!

Thank you to those of you who gave me feedback and advice! I pulled out of my funk and I know I can fly better now! I learned my use if too many named pilots that didn`t synch really hampered me. Now I can make a better list and I even learned how to place my asteroids!

Thanks again!

What was the squad that you ran in the tournament?

Garven

Rookie x wing

Blue squad with advanced sensors

Dutch with ITC

Well the big problem that I have myself, is the Huge chance factor of the dices. Seriously the fact that the dice alone can win you a game even if you don't know what how to fly your list is what that is bothering me the most.

I won a ship at Imdaar yesterday but went 1-2 today with horrendous rolls 4 times in a game, I was rolling 4 green dice and I rolled 3 blanks and 1 evade, opening attack rolled 3 blank on attack etc... The guy who won today, got totally owned by a guy who played is 2nd game yesterday... the guy can obviously play, but because his dice roll were ridiculous the day before, he went 0-3, but went 3-0 today with the same exact build. There is no logic but random luck, when 2 pilots knows how to fly their list...

They really should do something to mitigate the luck factor of the dice rolls. Another evade icon on the defense dice would help in regards to that, or just leaving one blank per dice. For sure luck is good to attract casual people, but when you want to be more serious. The luck side of bad dice rolls is just a bit too much... A lot of people complain about that in our local group and they are excellent players with solid builds.

As someone who plays both games, like yourself, I can give one bit of advice. Whereas in Attack Wing you might be able to take a single ship and beef it up to 90+ points by itself (such as the recent Borg Sphere), and it feels as though it is worth 90+ points, this is not the case in X-Wing. As your ships rise in cost, you are gennerally recieving diminishing returns on your investment.

I have a few simple points of advice:

1. if you aren't good at building killer lists, stop building lists. Find lists that place well in tournaments that you'd like to fly and fly that instead. Love the X-Wing, try Paul Heaver's World's list; it's simple to fly and provides good staying power.
2. Stop looking at the dice and thinking it is unfair. That is called observational bias. You will never roll enough dice in your lifetime to hit the expected values reliably. Stop worrying and learn to love the die.
3. Practice. Nobody ever became good at anything without practice.
4. Have fun. It's a game after all. Stop trying to win all of the time and just enjoy pushing little plastic spaceships around a table in 2 dimensional space.